Last month, I mentioned that the Open Group is creating an IT architect certification program that will assess an individual's experience and skill as an IT architect. The certification program will complement TOGAF - The Open Group Architecture Framework - another IT architect certification that's maintained by the IT industry consortium.

TOGAF has been around since 1995 and was originally named the X/Open Architecture Framework (the Open Group was formed after the merger of X/Open and the Open Software Foundation in 1996). At the heart of TOGAF is the Architecture Development Method (ADM), which defines the elements that make up an open systems environment: business architecture, data architecture, applications architecture, and technology architecture (covering systems, software and networks).

TOGAF certified architects have knowledge of ADM, but the certification does not certify a person's ability as an IT architect or their experience of using ADM. The IT architect certification that the Open Group is working on will address an individual's experience and skill, says John Spencer, director of the Open Group's Architecture Forum.

The business architecture element is the newest layer of TOGAF and was added in 2002 to form TOGAF Version 8. The Open Group describes business architecture as how an organization is structured and motivated and architects help to develop open systems architectures that take into where the organization is and where it wants to be and define the IT systems that can help the organization to achieve its goals.

There are around 230 TOGAF certified professionals in the world.

For more information about TOGAF, the Open Group has a guide here: http://www.opengroup.org/togaf/cert/docs/TOGAF_Certification_Guide.html

Jon Brodkin is senior writer at Network World.